We Can Not Be Apathetic

In times like this that the identity of our beloved university will be knocked off its feet by its nearing neo-liberalization, we have the role as students—the youth—to act.

It would be shameful for us that on this time that we have witnessed a big turning point of big social conflict of the community that we can not unite for a common interest. Yes we will graduate and leave the campus soon but it will be far from what it is now in the future.

We can not let the grown-ups tell us what to do, even if they were in the frontline of every picket line during the Marcos’s time. They faced a different reality far from ours today. Simply we can not be living to start on what they left behind and finish what they failed to do. We have the role to create and see our own world according to how we see it.

What is the unique of being a youth? When we graduate we can not be really free. In fact, when we leave the university we will be more tied down. We can not just subvert things, for such point of time, because—chances are—our concerns would be finding a job, working on our savings and helping our families. We get to be more submissive and become docile warm bodies. We are aging and we are realizing the structure and we lose the youth spirit to express our innocent questions.

Ever spent a time with a 3-year old child? If you would spend a day with her, you would probably think of gluing her lips together because of her ‘to the nth power’ number questions. She would never stop asking about everything. The expected crude answer for the questions is simple: ‘That is how it works’. Basically the child challenges things because she has not yet assumed structure on her reality. However grown-ups already did—choices are reduced—norms are familiar and accepted. Think about it. We lose pieces of our huge and numerous aspirations of who we want to become bit by bit as we ladder age groups.

When I was very young I wanted to become a doctor—as clichéd as it sounds—or as a film director. As I stepped in high school I realized that hard sciences aren’t for me and film requires a lot of creativity and capital. Considering also my family’s capacity to spend for the education I needed for the road to any those professions. Other factors also put effect on my decisions. There is just no such thing as serendipity. Fate is weaved not by coincidence but in subtlety.

The more we age, the less we feel for agency over our reality—the more we realize prohibitions and limitations to our childish fantasies. When we grow up we have all the time to be ‘obedient’ to norms (which are presumed to be ‘just’) because we have to deal with ‘real’ things.

The saying that: ‘Ayusin mo muna sarili mo bago ang iba,’ can not be firmly applied. See, it is very hypocritical and it expounded no exact standard of what is ideally acceptable. If we are meant to conform to the norms, then why should we put effort to change it? If we give in, it would be hard to challenge it later. It doesn’t even follow that what is wrong is justifiable just because we are not yet that ready to be ‘right’. When can we say we are ready enough?

We should not be afraid to be over-angered by things around you that threaten youthful values. We have to prove where we stand. Antagonisms are everywhere—with our parents, the academe, media, fellow students and the grown-ups. We are not brainwashed just because we deviate from their standards. In fact those who call corrupted are the ones who readily gave up their youthful ideas to the ideological apparatuses. They were the first to be corrupted. They are the ones got brainwashed in the first place.

Yes we believe in academic freedom, but not all of our ideas are made out of a genuine preference of our subscription. Academic freedom ideally should function not to divide us among political camps but to help us define our own emancipation with less stigma for the interest of a student community. I believe that being cynical and apathetic is not inborn. We are conditioned to act so. Before we become apathetic let us at least know the interest of our cultural class. How can we be responsible citizens if in the first place we pay neglect to our own category? Before we become apathetic and hypocritical, let us first envision our reality in the perspective of a youth, as a UP student—that each can not be isolated from our bigger social concerns.

Let us not allow our freedom to be reduced to the freedom to consume goods or the freedom to park a vehicle. Let us not allow others do significant choices for us. We want to do it on our own. The saying ‘Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan!’ still holds though it sounds sappy and passé. Apathy will not lead us to anything worthy. Let us know how to stand upon these overwhelming social issues we are currently facing. Let us be involved and be conversant.

When you get stabbed, the least you could do is to be aware of it.

University Convocation

I attended the University Convocation yesterday sponsored by the UPD university student council. Well it was going well until one elite-looking hysteric ruined the forum. The girl was not that pretty to be considered cute of what she had done and said in that occasion. She was journalism major and a junior student. She was questioning the legal credibility and transparency of the claims of the student groups in relation to TOFI (tuition fee and other increases) and the withholding of funds for of The Philippine Collegian (the campuses student publication).

The girl was asking for papers and credentials that would actually only convince her to believe such statements about the administration of this university.

Her comments and inquiries were definitely off the topic. She was distracting the discussion and delaying it so that other questions would not be raised. I see she had hypocrisy with her. She was pretending to be concerned but her only aim was; to look good with her knowledge of journalism ethics as her lone standard in her inquiry and eventually put the event into a mess.
Questioning the student movement groups with respect to legitimacy is something stupid. Stupid, in relation to the present issue, the administration is using the legal and legitimate means to repress student rights; and lead to sufficing some goals that might not resonate the values of the studentry. If the administration or the dominant party uses legitimacy to undermine the stud entry then why should we be fighting for our rights? We are not law makers and we are students. Knowing that everything is not fair and equal between the student groups and the admin, why should we be restrained to express the sound injustices in our perspectives by considering equality? Equality is dysfunctional if both sides are not really equal in the first place.

The girl was very irrational and her mind was corrupted (did not go any depth on the issue. Not in all places we carry the law especially in scholarly discussions. She definitely adhered on the ethics of journalism crap. Ethics and norms of a technical discipline or a marketable profession is something backed up by the legitimate order. If we will just subject our actions relative to the legitimate order then we are do live 'our own truth'. We are letting the structure corrupt us. We know that the studentry is repressed by the admin but why should we be guided and limited, in standing for our rights, by a tool used against us? That is stupid for me. She was thinking that maybe what she had done made her any smarter. She might have thought how clever she looked at there over the microphone.

The question is not about legitimacy or being intelligent, it is how you stand on your issue. Legitimacy is a crude and surface level (not well thought) perspective to consider.

Assessing student movements with legitimate standards is very uncritical-thinking. You are just masturbating the norms and do not envision the perspective of your milieu, the student. There is really no such thing as a revolution that is dramatically obeying the law. So what was she part of the party envisioning if she were concerned about the issue? Was she in the perspective of a student in this institution or as an administrator, hypocrite, TV anchor?

She mentioned that having different views is good. I agree to that. But her inquiries were really irrelevant. Now her inquiries should have not been entertained. I believe in academic freedom. Okay she expressed her irrational doubt. She was freely let go to question and bullshit the students’ movement's stand. Now, that wasn't really what should be the topic for the discussion. She was not repressed but she repressed relevant ideas that should have been put on the table in the interest of the goals of the forum: to lay down the facts and know how student sees these events. Pretty much her inquiries don't resonate with mine. Hers and her company's ideas are so out of the field of discussion. Now, because she caused so much delay and trouble; she heatened up the room and made other people hysteric (because of her irrationality to assess the issue), she repressed viable ideas and just drained the time. She committed enough symbolic violence to spoil the campaign for a movement. Now, she might not believe about symbolic violence because mainly her standard is 'what is lawful and ethical crap.' The law doesn't recognize this as something oppressive but it [symbolic freedom] definitely does the same as hitting someone’s head with a mic stand. Her symbolic freedom wasn't really directed to the administration but to the campaigning party, the Collegian.

Lastly she wasn't clear of her standards and perspective. So possibly the crowd was confused that what she was saying was the divine norm for every action to be acceptable.

I pity the socialite lady. I wish she should have taken Sociology 10 before she could graduate and leave UP. She made me prejudices against Journ/CMC people. She was lucky the majority of the people there inside were not CSSP majors and its faculty. It would have been a laughing spectacle. She was lucky Sarah Raymundo, my sociology instructor wasn't around on that event, or else, she might regret she attended that forum. I feel bad that apathetic people still push to be apathetic and put down the emancipated active students. I find it funny. The apathetic don't care but the effort to attack the subversive. She is a dysfunction of the university. Then she is bragging about she is from UP. Ha. Think ate. Prove your status. UP journ majors have a lot of prestige so don't ruin it by your crude judgments. Know first about how movements work. Good diction and style just isn't everything.

Ethics is something not innately there. They are MADE; and there are reasons why they exist and the reason behind their nature.

I suggest if you are not convinced about this, find someone who understand student power better with their own perspectives--they don't claim the one-way-road-to-the-truth so you are not forced to be hegemonised unlike your ethics and the admin. Know more about student power. More is still behind prejudices and distortions made by the media, our parents and the apathetic.

I want to make clear that this not just a hate letter but an invitation to understand more on student power as a social text.

I stand against TOFI (tuition fee and other increase). Uphold the Philippine Collegian's autonomy.
Let it not be, that in our present residence in this institution, a turning point of the massive negligence to public welfare will take place.